Tesla CEO Elon Musk may be a hateful, far-right troll, but the cars that Tesla builds are actually pretty solid. When we drove the Tesla Model Y, we found it to be a great daily driver, and you just can’t beat the Supercharger network. One downside, though, was that due to Tesla’s focus on minimalism, you have to do pretty much everything through the Model Y’s giant touchscreen. Apparently, we’re not the only ones who found that frustrating, as one owner in China decided to go so far as to add physical controls to their Model Y, The Drive reports.
Reading that last line, you might assume it was some janky setup, but as you can see in the video below, it’s actually pretty clean and nicely integrated. If you didn’t know any better, you might even think that’s how the Model Y comes from the factory. If you didn’t know any better, you might also assume that Tesla owners would love this kind of thing. Instead of taking their eyes off the road to navigate through various menus to do things like adjust the temperature, they could push the button. Unfortunately, we do actually know better, and many of the reactions were absolutely wild.
To be clear, the video wasn’t met with universal hate. Plenty of people who thought adding physical controls was a great idea. Those who didn’t, though, had quite a lot to say on the subject.
“Elon tries to drag us out of the Stone Age, and this guy is kicking and screaming to go back to his cave,” wrote one user.
“Great add-on for boomers,” added another.
Someone else chimed in, asking, “Will he slap a blackberry on top of my iPhone too?”
Others had concerns about safety. “Opening frunk with a physical button seems a bit dangerous,” wrote one user. Another added, “Too complicated, would crash the car looking for one of those tiny buttons that all look the same.”
There were also some more delusional responses, such as one user who declared, “Not needed long term. Even if you want shortcuts, you won’t need them. The car will know what you want and do it for you, including indicating/turn-signals.” Sure, buddy. Whatever you say.
There are plenty more replies that we could have included, but that feels like enough to give you the gist of the negative responses to one guy ordering an aftermarket part for his car. And while we probably wouldn’t want a button or knob for every single possible setting in modern cars, having a few physical controls nicely integrated beneath a touchscreen seems like a pretty great idea for us.